National Disaster Search Dog Foundation Puts First Responder Boots – and Paws – on the Ground

In the wake of Maui’s tragic 2023 wildfires, relief organizations and the goodwill of the world at large poured into the affected areas. Amid this bustling influx of aid, three California task force workers and their dogs quietly made landfall and began methodically working through the smoldering ruins. These National Disaster Search Dog Foundation (SDF)-trained Human Remains Detection (HRD) teams would be instrumental in the painstaking search for victims in Maui’s devastated communities.  “We say they’re like the Olympic athletes of the canine world,” says Denise Sanders, Senior Director of Communications & Search Team Operations at the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation. “They train up their stamina so their energy doesn’t flag in the course of these long searches.”

 In 1996, FEMA-Certified Canine Search Specialist Wilma Melville founded SDF to address the troubling shortfall of rescue canines she’d seen working the ruins of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing the year before in Oklahoma City. Melville drew up a training curriculum and model for an organization she envisioned as a mission of mercy – both for future victims of disaster, and for the unwanted dogs she would retrieve from shelters and transform into incomparably specialized, deeply loved rescue animals. 

“She needed to set up a system,” Sanders explains, “that could take all these different types of dogs – and all these different types of humans – and figure out the best way to recruit, train, and partner them.”

 In 2017, the SDF’s privately funded National Training Center (NTC) launched near Santa Paula, California. The NTC is a sprawling, 145-acre forensic mock-up of all the disaster scenarios for which SDF’s canine rescuers are arduously and lovingly trained. A map of the NTC includes such place names as Rubble Pile, Train Wreck, Collapsed Freeway, Tilted House, and more. “The tilted house is built to code, believe it or not,” Sanders says with a smile.

 Dog lovers may wonder if all shelter dogs complete the program, and what happens to those that don’t. “Once rescued, they’ll never have to be rescued again,” Sanders says. “That is our lifetime care promise to any dog that enters our program. It’s not just about the disaster search program, it’s about helping each and every dog.”

 The foundation offers its services to first responders with a two-word caveat: No Charge. “We all know that these first responder budgets have become strapped in recent years,” Sanders says. “We’re not charging fire departments or task forces for anything. Taxpayer dollars are not going towards these dogs. We’re able to do that because our donors believe in the work we do. These dogs and their loving handlers are out there training each and every day in preparation for something that we hope never happens.”